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Fouad Sahnoun
Fouad Nasim Khalil Sahnoun (Arabic: فؤاد نسيم خليل سحنون; April 29, 1918 - June 10, 1997) was a Algerian soldier and émigré to France. Sahnoun served in World War II, the Indochina War, and the Algerian War, staying loyal to the French government. Early life and family Fouad Sahnoun was born in 1918 in the city of Constantine in French colonial Algeria. Though his father Nasim was fully Arabic, his mother Yamina was of partial Berber descent. The family were Sunni Muslims. Nasim Sahnoun (1891-1958) was a merchant and sold tools and metalworks at the market in the center of the city. By the 1930s, after doing well in the market, Nasim opened up a full shop in Constantine, with the intention of doing business with Pieds-Noirs and French nationals as well as Arabs. The shop, however, fared poorly, and by 1938, the family had fallen on hard times. To do his part for his family, Fouad decided to enlist in the Army of Africa in French service and send whatever money he could back to his family in Constantine. After completing basic training in an army camp outside of Constantine, Sahnoun was assigned to the 13th Algerian Tirailleurs Regiment, a mostly Arabic unit led by mostly French officers. Military service World War II In August 1939, due to rising tensions between France and Nazi Germany, the regiment was deployed to Europe. Corporal Sahnoun and the rest of the men were stationed in Metz, subordinated to the 2nd North African Infantry Division in Toul. The situation in the country was tense, and the Algerians prepared to move out at any time. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, prompting declarations of war from France and the United Kingdom. The 2nd Division was mobilized immediately for an offensive against the Germans. Just a week later, the Algerians, along with a large French force, invaded the Saarland. Resistance ranged from minimal to none at all, and Corporal Sahnoun and his men were able to secure the towns of Gersheim and Apach with little difficulty before moving on to take the Warndt Forest. They fought back a German counterattack and halted the advance just outside of Saarbrücken. Just a few days later, the 2nd Division was ordered back behind the French border, making the offensive nothing more than a waste of time. For the rest of the Phony War period, the Algerians focused on fortifying their defenses on the Maginot Line. In December 1939, the 2nd Division was transferred to Saint-Amand-les-Eaux on the border with Belgium. On May 10, 1940, the German Army commenced its invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning the Battle of France. Just a day later, Corporal Sahnoun and the rest of the 2nd Division entered Belgium to meet the German invasion. At the Battle of Gembloux a few days later, the Algerians were heavily engaged, repelling heavy attacks by German infantry and armor. Forced back from Limal, the Algerians retreated to Ottignies and continued to resist there. Though they had been driven back, the German advance in the north had been temporarily checked. With the Germans advancing on all fronts, however, the French were forced to retreat, first to Waterloo then back into French territory, with Sahnoun taking part in several rearguard actions. By late May, the 2nd Division had withdrawn into the Lille Pocket. Failing to break out over the Deûle River towards Sequedin, the Algerians withdrew into the city suburbs and repulsed attack after attack from the Germans in the Siege of Lille. Corporal Sahnoun and his men held out as long as they could, buying time for the evacuation taking place at Dunkirk. Unwilling to surrender, Sahnoun led a group of volunteers southwest out of the pocket once the 2nd Division had been captured. Reaching the Loire region in mid June, the Algerians set up a desperate defense in the town of Gennes, fighting for four days against a vastly superior German force until forced to surrender. Upon being taken prisoner by the Germans, Sahnoun was given a choice. Swear allegiance to the collaborationist Vichy French State, or be deported to Germany to work as a laborer. Corporal Sahnoun opted for the former. After spending some time in a German prison camp, Sahnoun was sent back to Algeria to serve in the coastal defense forces. In October 1940, he was assigned to the 1st Algerian Tirailleurs Regiment, part of the Algiers Division, and promoted to Sergeant. Garrison life continued as normal for Sergeant Sahnoun for two years, and he remained apolitical about the situation in France and the colonies. In November 1942, the Allies began Operation Torch, a three-pronged invasion of North Africa. The Algiers Division mostly let the British and Americans land peacefully, though Sergeant Sahnoun and his men offered some token resistance before retreating to the city of Algiers. The city surrendered that day, and as the Free French began to rally their forces in North Africa, Sahnoun was offered the opportunity to change sides once again. He agreed, and renounced all support to Vichy France. As the Allies advanced east, the French forces organized a division of Algerian volunteers to fight the Axis in Constantine, Sahnoun's home city. As there were many volunteers and few experienced soldiers to lead them, Sahnoun was raised to the rank of Second Lieutenant. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Algerian Tirailleurs Regiment of the Constantine March Division. The division was committed to the advance in December 1942, during the Run for Tunis. Crossing over into Tunisia, the Algerians saw limited action against the Italian and German defenders. By January 1943, the division was conducting reconnaisance in force into Tunisian territory. Lieutenant Sahnoun and his men were camped at the Faïd Pass when they were met by a German counterattack. The Algerians resisted as long as they could, but being outmatched in numbers and equipment were forced to retreat. In February 1943, the Allied forces in western Tunisia were subjected to a massive attack at the Battle of Kasserine Pass. Sahnoun's men, holding the hills to the west of the pass, fought back a preliminary German attack but withdrew after the pass itself had been captured. Throughout March, the Algerians were engaged with German and Italian forces as the Allies pushed deeper into Tunisia. Lieutenant Sahnoun and his men played a role in securing the Ousselat Massif. By April, the Axis forces were surrounded, and the Allies prepared the final offensive of the North African campaign. Sahnoun and the Algerians conducted numerous flanking attacks against the German and Italian forces on the southern sector of the Axis line to prepare for the push. During the offensive, the Algerians were held in reserve at first but pressed the attack in May, helping to secure Tunis and driving the Axis out of North Africa permanently. After the end of the campaign, Lieutenant Sahnoun returned to Constantine, where a permanent Algerian formation was to be established. The 3rd Algerian Infantry Division was established, and immediately began preparing for a new deployment to Italy. The 3rd Division departed Algeria for Italy, and disembarked in December 1943. The French and Algerian troops in Allied service were immediately committed to an advance against German positions in January 1944, in the first engagement of the Battle of Monte Cassino. Lieutenant Sahnoun and his men attacked the Germans on the right flank, seizing the forward positions on Monte Cifalco before capturing Monte Belvedere and Colle Abate in fierce fighting. However, progress on Cifalco was much slower, and by the end of the month the Algerians had failed to take their objectives on the mountain. With the other Allied forces failing on the other flanks, the offensive was called off. As a result of this, the Algerians of the 3rd Division were held in reserve, as two more attacks on Monte Cassino were carried out. In May 1944, the division was committed to Operation Diadem, the final assault. The Algerians crossed the Garigliano River and advanced into the Aurunci Mountains, pushing back the German defenders and breaking through the Gustav Line. They pushed north, and while Rome fell, the French divisions advanced on Senia, capturing it in early June. After this, the 3rd Division, along with all Free French forces in Italy, were withdrawn from the front and earmarked for the invasion of southern France. Sahnoun was promoted to captain as a result of his exceptional conduct in the Monte Cassino battles. In mid August 1944, as a part of Operation Dragoon, the Algerians landed in the south of France at Cogolin. Resistance from the Germans was initially minimal, and the division was given the mission of taking the city of Toulon. In the Battle of Toulon, Captain Sahnoun led his men to take Mont Faron from the north, eventually encircling the city. After hard fighting through the center of the city, Toulon was finally liberated. Moving west, the division was engaged in the Battle of Marseille, capturing the city after driving German troups out of its suburbs. With Toulon and Marseille in French hands, the Germans were in full retreat and the Allies pursued them north. By September, the Algerians had pursued the Germans back to the Rhône River Valley and the Vosges Mountains, where the Germans had established a defensive line. Throughout September, the fighting was slow going, as the Germans had entrenched themselves in a mountainous area. In October, the Algerians attacked through Moselle and Moselotte, taking Moselotte from the Germans. Captain Sahnoun's men also captured villages of Beaumont and Saulxures while pushing into the northern highlands. They also faced determined German counterattacks at Tête des Cerfs, the Piquante Pierre, Rondfaing, and Chapechatte, defeating each one. For the next few days the 3rd Division carried the assault throught the Belfort Gap. Throughout November, the Algerians fought the Battle of Alsace, taking Le Haut du Tôt, Forge and Rochesson, before proceeding to drive the Germans out of le Tholy and Château-Lambert as well as securing the mountain passes at Cols de Bussang, Col de Bramont and Col d'Oderen. In December, the 3rd Division pushed into the Colmar region, capturing Col du Bonhomme, the town of Orbey and the highlands of Worhof. The German Army, looking to divide the French and American forces, counterattacked in Operation Nordwind in January 1945. Captain Sahnoun and the Algerians were hurried to Strasbourg, where they held the line in the city suburbs against multiple German attacks, also repelling the Germans from Kilstett. After the offensive was defeated, the French forces advanced into the Colmar Pocket. The Algerians helped to take Artzenheim in February, eliminating the pocket and clearing the way for an Allied invasion of Germany. In Operation Undertone, the French and Algerians attacked through the Wissembourg Gap, with their objectives being the plains between Hagenau and the Rhine. They captured Oberhoffen-sur-Moder and Lauterborn before crossing the Lauter River into Germany. Moving through the Bienwald Forest, the 3rd Division attacked the heavily fortified Siegfried Line. By the end of the month, Sahnoun and the Algerians had crossed the Rhine River and taken Speyer on the other side. In early April 1945, the Algerians captured the German cities of Heuchelberg and Stromberg. Crossing the Enz River, Sahnoun's men drove the Germans out of Nagold and surrounded Pforzheim, taking the Broetzingen suburb in fierce fighting. Driving on Stuttgart, the Algerians of the 3rd Division eventually occupied the city with little resistance. By the end of the month, the advance was halted. On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. After the war, Captain Sahnoun and his men were engaged in occupation duties in southwestern Germany. In April 1946, the 3rd Division was disbanded. First Indochina War Ever since the colony of Indochina was released from Japanese control, French Union forces had been fighting a home-grown Communist insurgency called the Viet Minh. In 1947, the 3rd Regiment, along with many other North African colonial forces, was called to the country to fight the Communists. The regiment formed a special march battalion for overseas service, for which Captain Sahnoun volunteered. Sahnoun and his men disembarked at Saigon and were immediately deployed in counterinsurgent operations. Their initial posting was in the south of Cochinchina, around the provinces of Sa Dec and Tra Vinh, where Sahnoun and his unit patrolled the countryside and villages searching for Viet Minh guerillas. The Algerians held these positions here until November 1948, when they were transferred up north to the Tonkin region, where they continued usual operations. In September 1949, the March Battalion was replaced in country by the 3rd March Battalion, which Sahnoun subsequently joined. In Tonkin, the new battalion was given a new mission: the protection of Chinese refugees in the Tien Yen district. Once this was completed, the battalion was sent down south to Cochinchina in May 1950, where they were engaged in a series of search and destroy missions against Viet Minh combat formations. Around Thu Dau Mot, Lai Thieu and Ben Cat, the Algerians were responsible for a large amount of enemies killed and equipment seized. Once these missions were complete, the battalion moved to Cambodia, then Central Annam during the summer of 1952, beginning in June. Back in Tonkin, the battalion was engaged in operations in Phat Diem and Ha Dong as well as on Route Coloniale 6. Throughout 1953, Captain Sahnoun and the Algerians saw further service in various parts of Cochinchina, Central Annam, and the Plain of Jars in Laos before returning to Tonkin. In September 1953, the battalion, now attached to the 9th Mobile Group, prosecuted offensive operations against the Viet Minh in the Red River Delta region. In December, Captain Sahnoun and the Algerians were committed to Operation Castor, an airlift operation to reinforce Dien Bien Province. There, at the new French Union military base, they set up defenses around the strongpoints codenamed Dominique, just northeast of the command post. By the start of 1954, the Viet Minh had begun to surround the base, beginning the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The guerillas kicked off their assault in March, but Captain Sahnoun's men thoroughly beat back all enemy attacks. After a lull in the fighting, during which the enemy tightened the encirclement, the Viet Minh attacked again. They forced Sahnoun and his men out of their first two defensive positions, and the Algerians were forced to make a desperate stand, vastly outnumbered, to prevente the enemy from overrunning the command headquarters. They took back their original positions in a counterattack that night. Throughout April, a stalemate set in, and the Viet Minh continued their siege. With the French Union position all but hopeless, the Viet Minh commenced their final assault in May. Sahnoun and his men were pushed back from Dominique and the captain and a small group of survivors made a last stand at the command post. He was captured, and forced to endure a long and hazardous march to a prison camp, which he barely survived. A prisoner in northern Vietnam, Captain Sahnoun was offered better treatment by his captors if he would renounce his loyalty to France and instead pledge support to the National Liberation Front, a political group demanding Algeria's independence from France. He refused, and was held prisoner for five more months until his repatriation back to Algeria. France had lost its colony in Indochina, but Sahnoun would have to fight another similar war at home. Algerian War Returning to his home in Constantine, Captain Sahnoun was able to enjoy only a little time off until he and the men of the 3rd Algerian Tirailleurs were to be engaged in counterinsurgent duties in their own country. The FLN was waging a guerrilla war against the French colonial government. Being an Algerian, Sahnoun's loyalty to France initially came under suspicion, but his determination to fight the revolutionaries coupled with his seventeen years of sterling service in two wars meant that his commitment never again came into question. Assigned to the 19th Infantry Division, the 3rd Regiment was ordered to patrol the western sector of the area around Constantine. The Algerian troops were to keep security in the region as well as to hunt down any FLN forces they could find. The soldiers' mission mostly remained uneventful, as there were few FLN guerrillas to start with and the French military was mostly concerned with upholding martial law. This changed in August 1955, when FLN militants murdered hundreds of pieds-noirs in the Philippeville massacre. The Algerians were involved in a widespread crackdown on the area, killing guerrillas and arresting those suspected of FLN sympathies. It also made Sahnoun more determined than ever to stamp out the insurgency. He did, however, take exception to the brutal excesses committed by French troops in retaliation. Because of the atrocities on both sides, the conflict became one of ethnic hatred, not one between the forces of law and order and those of criminality as Sahnoun had hoped for. For good conduct in the anti-guerrilla operations, Sahnoun was promoted to major. Later in the year, the Algerians of the regiment were occupied with arming and training local bands of nomads in French service, grouped into companies. Major Sahnoun personally led some of these companies in an operation west of Constantine. Throughout 1956 and 1957, the FLN, bolstered by new recruits, stepped up their attacks. Sahnoun and the soldiers had to remain vigilant at all times in order to repel attacks by the militants. Beginning in September 1957, the Algerians also engaged in security duty on the Morice Line, a stretch of defenses along the border with Tunisia which stopped attackers coming in from that country. Around this time, they also forcibly removed entire populations of villages in order to cut them off from the FLN guerrillas. In May 1958, with the war against the FLN in Algeria going poorly, various factions of the French Army conspired to place Charles de Gaulle at the head of the government. Sahnoun supported the coup, and did what he could to ensure that his sector of the front in the country was controlled by Gaullist forces. He was also notified that his unit might be committed to Operation Resurrection, a possible march on Paris. De Gaulle was reinstated in June, marking the end of the Fourth Republic and the beginning of the fifth. After this, the army's strength in Algeria grew while that of the FLN weakened, and it seemed as if the French Union forces might win the war. Major Sahnoun's Algerian soldiers took part in many search and destroy missions against the FLN, killing and capturing many militants and reducing their strongholds. However, by the end of 1960, support for the war in metropolitan France was waning, and the FLN rebels still showed no signs of giving up. In a January 1961 referendum, a majority in both France and Algeria voted for self-determination, and so the war would come to an end. In response, a group of generals conspired to overthrow the government and replace it with a military dictatorship. Sahnoun was conflicted, on one hand wishing to remain loyal to his country and on the other worrying about the lives of his soldiers should the French government abandon them. In the end, he sided against the coup, refusing to take part and in many instances taking active measures against the rebels. After 1961, there was little fighting between the army and the FLN as peace talks proceeded. Major Sahnoun, however, was engaged in fighting the OAS, a hardline Pied-Noir terrorist group opposed to any kind of majority rule. Move to France and later service In March 1962, the Évian Accords brought an end to the war and immediate independence for Algeria. Major Sahnoun, an indigenous Muslim loyalist, knew he would not be treated well in the FLN-governed country. The Army of Africa was to be disbanded, and with it the Algerian tirailleur regiments. As a long-serving officer, Sahnoun was offered a transfer to the French Army. He accepted, and joined the 2nd Marine Infantry Regiment, which was being transferred back to France. He served in Le Mans and Auvours in the Sarthe region, though he was occasionally sent to Strasbourg or Metz and Koblenz in occupied Germany. In August 1967, Major Fouad Sahnoun retired from the French Army. Later life Upon his retirement, Sahnoun became a naturalized citizen of France, with the help of close friend and old army comrade Claude Lefeuvre. He moved to Marseille, as he missed the Mediterranean Sea and the warm weather which he had been deprived of while serving in Germany and northern France in the last years of his military service. He never married, and never had any children. He continued to practice his Sunni Islamic faith, and eventually became a prominent figure in the Muslim expatriate community in the city. On June 10, 1997, Fouad Sahnoun passed away. He was buried in the city's old Muslim cemetery. Views As the son of a struggling merchant in Algeria, Sahnoun remained largely uninterested in politics in his early life. The biggest change to this order was when he threw in his lot with the French colonial government during the war in Algeria. This distanced him from the Muslim community at large, and as he associated more with army officers from metropolitan France, such as Lefeuvre, he increasingly began to see himself as French. Sahnoun had a complicated relationship with de Gaulle and Gaullist politics as a whole. After supporting the president in both the 1958 and 1961 crises, he felt betrayed as many of his men were abandoned to the FLN. Though Sahnoun personally managed to save thirty of his men, mostly by pulling strings in the army bureaucracy which allowed them to emigrate, hundreds more in his regiment alone met a gruesome fate at the hands of lynch mobs, and many others died clearing minefields after the war. Sahnoun's decision to remain loyal to France was not inevitable. He was conflicted in the early years of the war, hoping that the insurgency could be quickly defeated and that a peaceful independence process could take place. However, as the belligerents became more and more polarized, it was clear there could be no reconcilliation and that Sahnoun had cast his lot, from which there would be no turning back. After the war, he never returned to Algeria, as former Harkis remain unwelcome to this day. Equipment Fouad Sahnoun carried the MAS-36 bolt action rifle throughout World War II and the First Indochina War. He also used the SACM M1935A pistol as his sidearm and carried the F1 fragmentation grenade. During the war in Algeria, Sahnoun used the MAS-49 semi-automatic rifle and MAC M1950 pistol.Category:Soldiers in World War II Category:Soldiers in the First Indochina War Category:Soldiers in the Algerian War Category:Algerian soldiers Category:French Colonial soldiers